Creative Healing for Youth in Pain (chyp) and Children’s Music Fund are jointly hosting a free online community event to explore the benefits of music therapy for youth with chronic pain. This event features a panel of experts – including a demonstration from a teen with chronic pain! After the presentation there will be a Q+A for participants to ask questions. You will be emailed a recorded copy of the presentation after the event.

Expert Speakers

Jon Samson, MA MT-BC is the first board certified music therapist in history to receive a Grammy, and the first native South African to win for Best Children’s Album! Jon resides in Brooklyn, NY and founded CoCreative Music in 2005 where he offers a unique combination of music therapy, audio/video production, artistic mentoring and life coaching to inspire “The Child Archetype” in all ages.

Raffi Tachdjian, MD, MPH is Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics in the Divisions of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Tachdjian received his medical degree from Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, followed by an internship and residency in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, with a fellowship in adult and pediatric Allergy & Immunology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He has authored over 20 scientific publications and serves as an editorial reviewer in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Tachdjian’s research focuses on immune dysfunction, asthma and allergic inflammation, and he has served as primary or co-investigator of 15 NIH and other grant-funded research studies. He was voted one of the UCLA Health System’s Best Doctors and was selected to receive the Editors’ Choice Award by The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Dr. Tachdjian is also considered an authority on Hereditary Angioedema and Chronic Granulomatous Disease, both orphan diseases with emerging treatment modalities he continues to develop. Dr. Tachdjian completed an internship at the Centers of Disease Control & Prevention, where he led the outbreak investigations and epidemiologic studies on Pertussis (whooping cough). He is credited with helping to understand the waning immunity of the pertussis vaccine, which led to current booster dosing in adolescents and adults. Board certified in Adult and Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, Dr. Tachdjian serves as Director of Clinical Trials of AIRE Medical Group of Los Angeles, with clinics in Santa Monica, and Burbank, CA. Finally, Dr. Tachdjian is the founder and president of the Children’s Music Fund (www.TheCMF.org), a 501c3 non-profit providing musical instruments and Music Therapy to children with chronic and life-altering illness.

Talin Babikian, PhD, ABPP is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist with over 15 years of experience in private practice working with a broad spectrum of children and young adults, and their families. She is also Associate Clinical Professor in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Associate Director of BrainSPORT at UCLA, an inter-departmental and multi-disciplinary program for identifying and treating brain injuries — including concussions — in youth and professional athletes, where she oversees the Sports Neuropsychology Fellowship training program. Dr. Babikian earned a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Neuropsychology from Loma Linda University in 2005. She completed a combined research/clinical postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric neuropsychology at the UCLA School of Medicine, specializing in general pediatric neuropsychology and a research focus in brain injuries in youth. Dr. Babikian is actively involved in research using novel neuroimaging techniques to understand neurocognitive outcomes and the course of repair and recovery following a brain injury in childhood. She has authored and presented several publications on this topic in journals, book chapters, and professional seminars nationally and internationally.

Lonnie Zeltzer, MD is a Distinguished Research Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Immediate Past-Director of the UCLA Pediatric Pain and Palliative Care Program. She is a co-author on the Institute of Medicine report on Transforming Pain in America and is a member of the national steering committee assigned to provide directions for pain research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  She has received, among other awards, a Mayday Pain and Policy Fellowship and the 2005 Jeffrey Lawson Award for Advocacy in Children’s Pain Relief from the American Pain Society (APS).  Her UCLA integrative pediatric pain program received a 2009 Clinical Centers of Excellence in Pain Management Award from APS and a 2012 award from the Southern California Cancer Pain Initiative. She was an invited member of the Institute of Medicine National Expert Panel on pain in American and was a co-author of the IOM publication on the committee findings in 2011. She was an invited member of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Special Advisor on The State of Opioids in America and the FDA Committee on Analgesia, Anesthesia, and Addiction. She was also an invited member of the Expert Advisory Committee on Hemoglobinopathies as a pain expert for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) at NIH.  She has over 350 research publications on childhood pain and complementary therapies, has written more than 80 chapters, and published her first book for parents on chronic pain in childhood (HarperCollins, 2005) and her second book for parents on chronic pain in children and young adults (Shilysca Press, 2016).

Jenna Bollard, MA, MT-BC, CCLS, RMT is a multi-certified Child Life Specialist, Music Therapist, Reiki Practitioner and meditation instructor with specializations in Music Therapy Assisted Childbirth, NICU Music Therapy and Neurologic Music Therapy. Jenna received her Bachelor Degree in Music Therapy from Berklee College of Music and her Master’s degree in Music Therapy from New York University. Currently, Jenna is the Expressive Arts Therapies Manger at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital and is helping to develop the Music Therapy program for UCLA Health. Outside of the hospital, Jenna hosts CBMT approved trainings for music therapists, provides clinical supervision, is an active member of three MT focused non-profits and provides healing services through her private practice, Wildflower Wellness. Her mission is to provide deeply nourishing multimodal healing experiences to support the mind, body and spirit.

*When you register for this event your email will be added to the mailing list for each organization (chyp and CMF). You may opt out at any time.